Stress, Depression, and Anxiety Symptoms in Older Adults: Temporal Trend and Relationship with COVID-19

Introduction. Although studies have demonstrated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, those correlating COVID-19 statistics with the psychosocial repercussions in older adults are as yet incipient. Objective. Evaluate the screening of stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms in older adults throughout the pandemic and their relationship with the occurrence and severity metrics of COVID-19. Method. An ecological, time-series, web-based survey study was conducted in the population aged 60 and over who use digital media. Data collection was undertaken between July 2020 and January 2021 in eight Brazilian cities and included 2,712 older adults. Results. There was an upward trend in anxiety and depression symptoms in Brasilia-DF, and a downward trend in these symptoms in Divinopolis-MG. It was also possible to identify correlations between mental disorder symptom scores and COVID-19 occurrence and severity metrics in two of the cities evaluated Discussion and conclusion. This study is one of the first to explore the relationship between COVID-19 indicators and mental health variables in older adults, showing that changes in the occurrence and severity metrics of the Novel Coronavirus may be followed by changes in the frequency of mental health problems in this population. Keywords: Anxiety, depression, epidemiology, older adults. Introduccibn. Los estudios demuestran el impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 en la salud mental. Pero todavia son incipientes los estudios que correlacionan las estadisticas de COVID-19 con las repercusiones psicosociales en los adultos ancianos Objetivo. Evaluar la deteccion de sintomas de estres, depresion, y ansiedad en los adultos ancianos durante toda la pandemia y su relacion con las metricas de ocurrencia y severidad de COVID-19 Metodo. Se realizo un estudio ecologico, de series temporales, basado en una encuesta web en la poblacion mayor de 60 anos que utiliza medios digitales. La colecta de datos se realizo entre julio de 2020 y enero de 2021 en ocho audades brasilenas e incluyo 2712 personas ancianas Resultados. Se observo una tendencia de aumento de los sintomas de ansiedad y depresion en Brasilia--DF, y una tendencia de disminucion de estos sintomas en Divinopolis - MG. Ademas, fue posible identificar correlaciones entre las puntuaciones de los sintomas de trastornos mentales y la metrica COVID-19 de ocurrencia y gravedad en dos de las ciudades evaluadas Discusion y conclusion. Este estudio es uno de los pre